Many school districts try to exceed the limits of the law in order to have more power and control. They send out inaccurate information about homeschooling or demand information from homeschooling families that is not required by law. Although HSLDA regularly informs school districts of their errors and successfully protects its members, rarely do we receive an apology. This year, Colorado has proven itself willing to correct its mistakes.

The Woodland Park School District was distributing a memorandum, for homeschooling families in the district entitled "Homeschool Procedures." This memo contained several inaccurate statements of the homeschool law. Specifically, the memo stated that homeschoolers who lived in the district but who filed elsewhere were required to notify the resident school district and inform that district where the test results were filed. The memo also required families to use the school district's Notice of Intent to homeschool form, and insisted that habitually truant students could only homeschool after approval of their curriculum.

HSLDA senior counsel Christopher Klicka wrote to the assistant superintendent of Woodland Park School District, notifying the school district of the erroneous statements in the memorandum and requesting that the memorandum be corrected.

The assistant superintendent quickly replied and informed attorney Klicka that each of the changes HSLDA had suggested was incorporated in the district's new "Homeschool Procedures" memorandum.

As reported on September 10, 2003, the Eaton School District had been sending a packet of information to homeschoolers that was based on a law that was repealed over fifteen years ago!

Chris Klicka wrote to the district superintendent informing the district of their improper reliance on a completely outdated law. The district superintendent replied in a letter and assured HSLDA that he removed the old forms and would only ask homeschoolers for the information required by current law, as was explained in attorney Klicka's letter. The district superintendent thanked Mr. Klicka for facilitating this change.

We are grateful that we were able to resolve these situations and we encourage families to contact the HSLDA Legal Department if they are asked to provide their district with information that is not required by law.